"Forestry technician Grace Smith has spent the spring working 10-hour days, planting trees in the woods of the Silvio O. Conte National Fish and Wildlife Refuge in Vermont."
"Even with widely available vaccines and newly effective treatments, residents of counties that went heavily for Donald Trump in the last presidential election are more than twice as likely to die from COVID-19 than those that live in areas that went for President Biden. That's according to a newly-updated analysis from NPR, examining how partisanship and misinformation are shaping the pandemic."
"The power struggle inside a federal commission shows the real-world consequences of the Senate’s confirmation bottleneck."
"Sixteen months into the Biden presidency, Republicans still effectively control a federal agency that oversees mine safety, frustrating miner advocates who say the Trump nominees will continue to hand down decisions friendly to mine operators.
"The Interior Department’s internal watchdog on Thursday said it found no evidence that former secretary David Bernhardt violated lobbying laws regarding a former client, a California water district that is the nation’s largest agricultural water supplier, although he continued to advise them on legislative matters on occasion after he stopped being their lobbyist."
"One hundred years after a landmark agreement divided the waters of the Colorado River among Western states, the pact is now showing its age as a hotter and drier climate has shrunk the river."
"An estimated 85,087 occupied homes in Baltimore have “dangerous lead hazards,” according to a recent report from the Abell Foundation, a local public policy think tank. Fixing the problem would cost between $2.5 billion and $4.2 billion, the report said."
"Legislators in 18 states have passed laws to encourage the chemical recycling of plastic, also known as advanced recycling. These laws deem chemical recycling facilities manufacturers, not waste-handling facilities. This classification can pave the way for government financial incentives and less-stringent regulation."
"The United Nations chief on Wednesday launched a five-point plan to jump-start broader use of renewable energies, hoping to revive world attention on climate change as the U.N.’s weather agency said greenhouse gas concentrations, ocean heat, sea-level rise, and ocean acidification reached record highs last year."
"The top members of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee announced a deal on Wednesday to provide care to veterans who were exposed to toxic burn pits."
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